Bloglessness

We're back after a super long hiatus. I'm finding it more and more difficult to find the time to sit and spend time blogging. Or maybe it's not quite as easy as we have been home from Ukraine for almost two years now (scary) and I don't have as many cutesy first words, phrases or experiences to share like I used to.

Not that there isn't a lot going on in our lives. We seem to always be busy, and relish the days where we get to sit at home and do nothing (total opposite of when we were not parents!) We've kept Emma busy with gymnastics which she totally loves, and swimming lessons which she also loves but has a bit of a hard time learning.

Over the past few months, the reality of Emma's delays have been hitting us hard. Now that she's been here for awhile, we can clearly see that her difficulties are a result of more than just a language barrier. We feel we were a little bit "duped" by our Ukrainian facilitator who kept insisting that there was nothing wrong with Emma, despite the warnings the orphanage gave us. She assured us that even though Emma did not recognize numbers, letters, colors, etc., that she spoke very clear and concise and a little time spent on these things would surely catch her up. I find that a little hard to believe.

Don't get me wrong, there are no regrets. Terry and I have disscussed it in depth how we both knew in our hearts that Emma was for us and there is no way we could have left her there even if we knew the extent of her delays at that time. The fact remains that she will have a far better life and a far better chance here than there.

Now it's a matter of trying to find out what's causing Emma's delays, which may remain a mystery. Since being assessed by a psychologist late fall, the ball has started rolling. Genetic testing, upcoming MRI, meeting with therapist, developmental and mental specialists, psychologists, psychiatrists...it's all a little overwhelming. Whomever Emma meets, she completely baffles. On the surface, the first impression Emma gives is an adorable, charming, engaging little girl...totally normal. However, when assessed in functionality, she just can't seem to do what's asked of her.

The hardest part for me has been seeing the struggles Emma is running into socially. She used to be the cool kid from Ukraine who didn't speak english. All the kids were intrigued by her and wanting to hang out with and help her all the time. Now that the grace period is over, I see many old friends avoiding her and she's been in some fights on the playground. Other kids mom's who used to love having Emma over on playdates have suddenly started coming up with excuses why Emma can't come over. You know, kids acting like idiots is one thing, but when you see the same stupidity in adults, it's very frustrating. Emma's teacher has taken away her recesses because of "fights." When we question Emma about these "fights" she tells us how the other kids were also kicking and hitting her. Now, who's starting these spats, we won't know for sure because we're not there to watch her, but we were irate when we found out the other kids involved in these fights have not lost their recesses. Teacher "didn't know" that other kids were involved. She was just listening to the tattle tales and not even asking Emma about it. And Emma just doesn't have the ability to jump up and defend herself.

So, the last few months have been a struggle, especially when it comes to blogging. I've debated time and again as to whether or not our personal lives should be shared with the world, but ever since starting this whole adoption process, I've found message boards and blogging buddies to be some of the best supports and advice givers out there. Perhaps someone out there is going through the same type of struggles we are and will feel better that they're not the only ones. Or perhaps they will send me a word of encouragement. Whatever the case may be, many of you have been on board since the very beginning, and I definitely don't want to paint a false picture of our lives. Everyone deals with struggles, and this is one of ours. But we deal with it day by day as best we can.

During spring break, Emma stayed at Terry's sister's place in Devon. He would wake Emma up early in the morning while I was still sleeping and drive her in on his way to work. It was really strange to me to wake up in the morning to a quiet empty house all by myself. Terry told me his last day driving out, Emma was in the back seat sniffing quite a bit. This is not all that uncommon, as Emma frequently picks up coughs and sniffles. But he told me that when they got out of the car, she had her glasses in her hand and he saw that she had been crying. When he asked her what was wrong, she told him, "I miss my mommy." That story just brings tears to my eyes. It makes me want to scoop Emma up in my arms and hug her to bits. For so long I fretted over attachment issues. Now, me and Emma, we're like two peas in a pod. I love her to pieces and am so glad she's a part of our family. What the future holds, we don't know for sure. But again, we take one day at a time, trusting in God to give us wisdom and strength to raise this beautiful little girl!

Happy Easter

Hello family and friends. It's been awhile! And unfortunately just a quick post today, but hopefully soon I'll be posting a better family update.
Just wanted to upload a couple pictures from Emma's Easter egg hunt. We got her the bunny ears because she has a perfect set of bunny teeth. Last week she lost both teeth on each side of her two front teeth....just in time for Easter!

Off the Map....

Sorry people, that seems to be where we've dropped. Blogging through our whole vacation seemed like such a good idea, until I decided internet was costing too much. And after our cruise, our living quarters had no internet, so..... there you have it. I apologize to the family who were faithfully following the blog as our means of communication over Christmas.

Now that we've been home a few days and are getting back into routine, I'll give a quick rundown of the rest of our vacation....

After Grand Cayman, we had a stop in Jamaica. I was not looking forward to this stop a whole lot because of the bad rap that Jamaica has...everyone was trying to put the fear into us before we left. But it actually ended up being one of my favorite stops. The trick is to have an awesome tour guide to take you to the right places and give you the lowdown on how to deal with certain situations. We climbed Dunn's River Falls which was absolutely amazing and then went tubing down the White River. Both excursions were fantastic...a little scary with an eight year old who's more like a four year old who has no fear of anything. But we managed and had a great time.

Chrismas day was our last full day on the ship...a marvelous day at sea and the most beautiful day we had as well. Spent most of the day on the deck in the sun relaxing.

Boxing day was debarkation day and road trip day. Somehow, with a good ol' fashioned map (Budget was out of GPS) we managed to make it from Miami to Orlando to a little suberb where we rented a five bedroom house. Then it was go-go-go for the next three days. If ever I get to plan one of these again, it will definitely be the cruise at the end of the vacation for winding down purposes!

Day one was Aquatica - Sea World's huge waterpark. Weather was a little chilly that day, but we managed to have some fun. One bonus was NO lineups for the waterslides!

Day two was Sea World. We definitely could have used two days for this, but we managed to see most of the park and catch Shamu a couple of times. After seeing two Shamu shows, we bought a stuffed version of Shamu for Emma. Took us awhile to get her to stop calling him "Shampoo." LOL!

Day three was Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. Some pretty cool stuff to see and do there, but for the $300 it cost to get in and the $200 to buy express passes to avoid two hour line-ups, I wouldn't do it again.

Day four was homecoming. Thirteen days seems to be a good length of vacation because I was READY to come home. I missed our house, our bed, our soft towels. I couldn't wait to come home and get a good night's sleep!

Well, that dream was short lived. Flights home were a nightmare! Hmm, how can I make this long story short? Here goes:

Upon arrival at Orlando airport, we find out that changes have been made to our flights and we should be at Ft. Lauderdale airport which is FOUR hours away! DOH! Someone made a huge boo-boo! So while the rest of our family checked in for their flight, I patiently sat on hold for an hour with airline reservations who told me we wouldn't be getting out of there anytime soon.

As the airline was finishing it's check-ins and we could see someone closing all the line-ups, the phone lady finally came back on and told us to run to the check-in as she had landed us three seats on the same flight our family was headed out on. YAHOO! We went through check-in ASAP and practically ran through the entire airport to board the plane, only to find out......DELAYED!

Plane was broken and had to be fixed.
Sat for hours before finally taking off.
Missed connection in Houston.
Slept at Houston Marriott.
Up at the crack of dawn to try and get a flight out of Houston.
Sat for hours.
Finally fly Houston to Calgary.
Security is CRAZY SLOW (darned Christmas bomber!)
Flight delayed.
Thank goodness that was only a half hour flight home!

So, overall we had a really good vacation. Emma had tons of fun. Up till all hours of the night and then up really early seems to suit her just fine. I was a little worried about attachment issues with all this stimulation around her plus being there with a bunch of family, but she handled it like a pro. If you would have told me last Christmas that this would be us this Christmas, I would have told you that you were crazy. There's no way we could have done this last year.

Sorry, no pics to post. For my FB friends, I've put a bunch on there. If you're not my FB friend, you'll just have to make me one if you want to see the pics! :)

Grand Cayman

I was SO bummed this morning when we woke up to pouring rain. As we got up and got ready so early and then travelled by tender to land, I wondered why the heck we even bothered getting out of bed.

We had originally booked a snorkel and sting ray tour, but upon getting to land decided to take a bus tour so we could try and stay a little bit dry. The bus tour was actually pretty cool. Best part was turtle island. Hundreds and hundreds of sea turtles. It was amazing. And we got to pick 'em up and play with them, big ones and baby ones!

By the time our bus tour ended....hallelujah, the sun was blazing! We made our way back to the ship and saw that our snorkel/stingray tour was still available. We hopped on a bus, which took us to a boat which took us out to the middle of the ocean (sandbars). We were then able to hop off the boat into crytal clear warm water to do a stingray encounter. I would highly recommend this to anyone who comes to the area. Touching and holding the stingrays was incredible! Unfortunately, Emma was completely terrified and ended up back on the boat to observe.

Next it was off to a reef for snorkelling. The water was 10-12 feet deep, so being the non-swimmer that I am I decided to stay on the boat with Emma. After Terry had been out for a few minutes, he insisted that I put on some snorkel gear and come have a look. I very hesitantly did so (ok, he had to beg me, I was terrified). I got in the water and put on the gear and took a quick look under the water. Again, very cool. But when I looked up, the current had already pulled us about 50 ft from the boat. I started to panic and Terry had to help me back to the boat. Thank goodness we made it, it was very scary for me!

We just got back on the ship and cleaned ourselves up and are heading off for another awesome meal.

Such a great day today! My first time swimming in the ocean! :)

Cozumel

I've tried and tried to upload pics to blogger and it just won't work. Must be the crappy internet here on the ship. A bazillion dollars a minute and the slowest connection in the world. So, a quick rundown of our last couple days....

Yesterday we enjoyed a relaxing day at sea and a fun formal night. Emma and I got our hair done all fancy in the salon and dressed up in our best dresses along with all the rest of the family. We enjoyed a super fancy dinner in the restaurant, the special being a lobster and shrimp dinner. Mmmmm, SO GOOD. And the best thing about being on a cruise if that if you're not full after your first lobster meal, you just go ahead and order another one! There were a few people in the family who took advantage of this. Terry had prime rib dinner with lobster for dessert. :):)

After that we went for family photos. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a photo with our whole crew, as one of Terry's sisters succumbed to seasickness and stayed in her room most of the day. Hopefully on the next formal night we'll get a shot of all nine of us.

Today we ported in Cozumel, Mexico. Weather was overcast, but warm at first. We had our excursion booked at an all inclusive beach resort with Terry's sister and niece. We mainly sat around on the beach, while the girls enjoyed time in the pool and in the ocean. Terry and I also did a couples massage at the spa...my first massage ever. It was fabulous.

After coming back to the ship to clean ourselves up, we headed out again to do some shopping. We bought a bunch of stuff, but got caught in a torrential downpour on the way back to the ship. We were soaked. We were glad that we had left Emma back at the ship to play at the kid's camp.

That's all for now. Sorry no pics. Will try to update pics on facebook, but not sure if that will work either. If not, I will post more when we get home.

Love and miss all you family!

Hello, from International Waters

Hey there!
Found a few minutes to squeeze in a post. I've decided posts will be short and sweet. Internet on the cruise ship is about a bazillion dollars a minute! I'm typing as fast as I possibly can, so sorry if there are any typos!

Made it safely to Miami yesterday, despite a few delays. Apparently there were a few nasty storms across the US that caused many problems for the airline. One funny story: About 10 minutes after our flight left Edmonton, Emma was looking out the window and saw some lights. She turned around and asked me "Mommy, is that Florida?" LOL! Poor kid didn't know how long of a day she was in for!

We stayed our first night in Miami. It was super humid due to some torrential downpours they had the day before we got here. But what an amazing feeling to step out of the airport into this warm weather!

Today was spent embarking on the cruise ship and getting our bearings. The best part was leaving the hotel and grabbing a taxi for all nine of our family members and luggage. They were trying to convince us that we needed two vehicles, but we are cheap and insisted on the one minivan. Only $25 for nine of us and all our luggage to the cruise ship...squishy, but a great deal! :):)

Sorry, can't put pics on right now. Tried twice and wouldn't work. Not going to waste any more precious internet minutes tonight. Bye for now!

Only 2 days to go!

Somehow this past few weeks has gone by in such a blur. Crazy busy at work and trying to plan and prepare for our upcoming trip has been time consuming. I need a vacation from planning this vacation already! Thank goodness I took a couple days off beforehand to finish up those odds and ends.

The house is cleaned, aside from the tree being taken down tomorrow (sniff, sniff!) Oh well, I'm sure I won't miss it after we leave. Bags are pretty much packed as we took the time to "practice" pack a little while ago. Why, you ask? Well, we decided after hauling 2 large suitcases and 2 carry-ons to Hawaii last year, and 3 large suitcases and 2 carry ons all across Ukraine for 2 months, that packing around all that stuff sucks. I guess we are a little bit more seasoned now when it comes to travelling. This time around, we each get one carry-on suitcase. Yup, that's all. Well, except for my purse and our laptop bag. So you can see why we need practice. Fitting everything I'm going to need for 2 weeks in a small carry-on suitcase is a challenge. Thank goodness Emma doesn't need alot of room for her stuff, so I can sneak some of my stuff on hers. :):) Otherwise, it would never happen.

Just wanted to put on a quick post today because I don't imagine I'll have alot of time before we leave. The laptop is coming with us, so we can keep in touch with family and friends by e-mail and FB. The big question remains...to blog or not to blog? I'm not sure how it will go. I would love to blog about our entire journey, but will I have time? I will, afterall, be on vacation. We'll see. I'd like to try.

Take care, and a very Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends. You will all be missed!!!!